LATEST NEWS!

I founded Spazbot Studios in 2014 with a few simple guidelines. I wanted to work with Awesome People, and we wanted to produce really good shows. That was pretty much it. Over the years, we shifted the focus to building an audience. We ended up building a community of terrific listeners and viewers. This year we celebrated our two year anniversary, and we broke new records across the board in terms of engagement. There are a lot of reasons to be grateful. We certainly are grateful.

However, sometimes change happens, and change is coming to Spazbot Studios.

I (Mick Montgomery) am stepping down as Executive Producer and Co-Host of Both The Starting Zone & Stormcast. That is probably very shocking for a lot of you, and there will be a lot of questions. Hopefully, I can answer them in THIS BLOG POST that I put up over on my personal site. So, feel free to check it out. Rest assured, I am stepping down for all the right reasons.

Josh “Another Notch” Cornwell is also stepping down as Co-Host of Stormcast. Notch joined the show in 2014, and he was an integral part of the show’s rise to one of the top Podcasts on iTunes for Heroes of the Storm. Notch’s hard work on his personal stream attracted the attention of several companies and gaming studios. He made the tough decision to pull back from the Heroes of the Storm scene this year and focus on different games. In the end, that was the best decision for him, and his career has benefitted from that decision. From the bottom of my heart, I want to thank Notch for ALL his hard work on Stormcast. He is a terrific person to work with. We wish him the very best. I am glad to call him my friend, and I am happy for all the good things coming his way.

Alt from Alternative Chat will also step away from her Producers / Co-Host Duties for The Starting Zone, when I end my run on the show. Alt came to The Starting Zone at a crucial time in the show’s history. She brought a tremendous about of talent and a powerful voice and years of play experience to the show. The show was better because of it. She has her own goals to pursue, and in many ways I am excited to see her continue on with her own projects moving ahead. She has a tremendous passion for World of Warcraft and the people who play it. It has been a pleasure and an honor to create the show with her.

So, what will happen to The Starting Zone and Stormcast? Is this the end? I know it would seem that way to you folks. I have been the stable voice of each show since they launched.

Details are being worked out for each show moving forward. As Executive in Charge at Spazbot Studios, I would love to see them continue on in some way shape or form. So, we are working out the logitics internally at this time with the hope that each show will move forward with New Co-Hosts. We are not ready to make any official announcements. However, all hosting changes will be wrapped up before August 18th, 2016.

Stormcast will have (2) more shows. This week on August 3rd, Dills and Mick will be joined by Special Guest Jon Jagger. Then Notch will return for one Final Show on August 8th, 2016. After that, we don’t know yet.

The Starting Zone has several as of yet un-released episodes, which will be coming out over the course of the next three weeks. The Date of my last official shows in un-determined at this time, but most likely it will be before August 18th, 2016. After that, we don’t know yet.

I will continue to Executive Produce and Host Dead Fans Talking & Super Heroic. Schedules for those shows will remain in tact. I may take a temporary hiatus from them, but I anticipate that by mid September everything will be right back on track.

I understand that for many of you this is not the news you were hoping to read about the Studio. I understand a lot of you will have a ton of feelings and questions. You can obviously reach out to me on twitter or send me an email. Whichever you prefer. Just know this. These changes are the result of great things that have happened over the last several months. I will share more details soon.

Also, I think in order for Spazbot Studios to grow, I need to take a step back from production, and allow other talented people to step forward and start creating good content. I think the future for Spazbot Studios in yet to be written. Perhaps some of the best content is still yet to have been made. Time will tell.

Lastly, I want to THANK ALL OF YOU! I want to thank you for your support of the Studios! Your kind thoughts, awesome feedback, and participation have been the reason we have been able to do what we have done in the last two years and change. Thank you so very much for being the best damn group of Spazbots a guy could ever want.

This maybe the WEIRDEST title we have ever written for a Blog Post, but it is true. So, first off, there is not some sort of staff rebellion going on. Long Story Short, we now have a Spazbot Studios DISCORDwhich you can access by going to spazbotstudios.com/discord.

“What the heck is Discord?” you ask.

Let me explain what DISCORD is first, and that will clarify a few things! I will also apologize up front, because this will be the most tech nerd blog post ever.

A Lot of Gamers will know about voice apps like Ventrillo or Mumble. Small discreet apps that connect you to a voice server so you can chat with your fellow players as you play games have been around for years. Now you console gamers will no doubt say, “Wait is this like XBOX LIVE voice chat?” Yes, it is exactly like that, but for PC users.

Last year a new company jumped into the fray with an app that was both web based and local client based. It also incorporated another pretty cool feature, text channels like the app SLACK. Slack is a text based communication tool billed a replacement for email. Is it really? No, but we use that too for internal stuff at Spazbot Studios. It is neat. The last cool feature was the mobile apps for your phone. This company is DISCORD.

Essentially Discord does a couple of things well. It allows us to have a place for folks to meet and chat while they play games. It gives a place for folks to talk to us without using twitter or email. And lastly, it essentially gives us a FORUM Site without having an actual forum site, which I find to be gross. Anyway! This is yet another community facing tool. A place for you to hang out and have some fun, and interface with us! We look forward to getting to know you even more!

Our Humble Little New Media Production Company will turn 2 years old this February 2016. It seems crazy to think that we have been at this now for two years, producing content, developing new shows, writing shows on a weekly basis, etc. Time has really seemed to flown by in our brief history. I can remember building this very website for the first time in 2014. I remember the launch of Dead Fans Talking the first official NEW Spazbot Studios Show! So, many things have happened since then, and it has been an amazing journey. We have succeeded. We have failed. We have learned some things. We have celebrated. We have met some wonderful people. More after the jump!

Howdy Spazbots! We have a had a tremendous year at Spazbot Studios! Wow, so much incredible moments! We had an awesome Holiday Show to close out the year, and we are still putting out new episodes this week from STORMCAST and SUPER HEROIC! However, after our last Podcast Drops in 2015 we are done until the new year! Here is when we will return!

Stormcast will record LIVE 1/5/2015 @ 8pm PST and episode 77 will be released later that week!

The Starting Zone will record LIVE 1/10/2015 @ 9am PST and Episode 142 will make it into the wild later that week!

Super Heroic will record LIVE 1/10/2015 @ 8:30pm PST and new Episodes will be released later that week!

Dead Fans Talking will resume in 2015, but at a still undetermined time frame, but potentially mid-January!

A Very Special Year End SPAZBOT SIGNAL will go up on or YouTube Channel During the Holiday Break and it will be available on all the Podcast Feeds in Audio Format!

As for the GAP, well, we need to rest our engines, spend time with family and friends and just take a break! We also have to make sure the TABLE is set for an awesome 2016! Stand By for more Good Shows by Good People!

This amazing show features your favorite HOSTS FROM EVERY SINGLE Spazbot Studios Show! OH, AND PRIZES! That’s right there will be amazing Prizes that we give away to PEOPLE IN OUR CHAT ROOM! Our good friends at Jinx.com and Gunnar Optiks have hooked us up with some AMAZING prizes for our awesome listeners and viewers! We will be giving away!

A JINX.COM GIFT BUNDLE!

A PAIR OF GUNNAR OPTIKS PPK GLASSES!

ORIGINAL AWESOME ARTWORK BY TYLER RIVERS

AND SOME OTHER FUN STUFF FROM FUNKO!

We have had a truly amazing year, and we want to celebrate all of this awesome WITH YOU. Don’t Worry! We know not ALL of you awesome SPAZBOTS can join us that night, no worries! We do not want you to miss out on a chance to get some PHAT LOOT! We are going to give away a pair of GUNNAR OPTIKS PPK Glasses to one of you folks as well! All you have to do is simply send an email, tweet or leave a facebook comment for ANY of your favorite Spazbot Shows (Stormcast, The Starting Zone, Dead Fans Talking or Super Heroic)! Use the Hashtag #SpazbotHoliday and you will be entered to win a Free Pair of Gunnar Optiks PPK Glasses!

We want to celebrate at truly fun and amazing year of Growth for Spazbot Studios! This is our HOLIDAY PARTY! SO COME OUT AND HAVE FUN WITH US! Oh and afterwards, if you want to hang out and play some Heroes of the Storm Matches, we will be doing that with some of our awesome listeners! Thanks for making 2015 such a great year! Come Join us for the Celebration!

If you are a fan of Blizzard Entertainment Games, and believe that we are BIG FANS, then this coming weekend’s festivities are one of the highlights of the year for you! This year Blizzcon will happen November 6th – 7th @ The Anaheim Convention Center and we are mobilizing the SPAZBOTS IN MASSE to conver the event and present some awesome Audio and Video Content for you folks!

STORMCAST

Mick Montgomery, Willie “Dills” Gregory and Notch will be attending the conference and doing LIVE Panel at World of Podcasts this year @ 6:30pm PST! Some come and watch that! It’s taking place at the Hilton Hotel across from the Convention Center!

Also, The Guys from Stormcast will record a show LIVE from the FLOOR OF BLIZZCON which will be released by Sunday November 8th!

Expect some LIVE TWEETING as well from the guys about Heroes of the Storm!

THE STARTING ZONE

Mick Montgomery will also cover all things World of Warcraft, and he will definitely be in attendance at the WELL PLAYED PARTY hosted by the Convert to Raid Guild on Friday, Nov. 6th from 7pm – 11pm!

Fellow Starting Zone Contributors will be on-hand as well including, Jason Lucas & Spencer Downey to check out the Panels and report back! Even some of the Crew for Super Heroic will be attending and helping out with coverage, so expect reports from Darrell Goodwin and David Troy!

A LIVE from the FLOOR OF BLIZZCON Podcast Will be recorded and distributed by Sunday November 8th!

Lastly, Mick Montgomery will do the SPAZBOT SIGNAL from Blizzcon as well, so look out for that on YOUTUBE sometime during the Convention!

You can also expect a BEVY of Content Creators and Fellow Podcasters to do interviews and share their thoughts on BLIZZCON 2015! This should be a REALLY fun event and we hope you enjoy our coverage!

We are excited to announce a brand new project that will be featured on our YOUTUBE CHANNEL! We call it the SPAZBOT SIGNAL! Every week Mick Montgomery will give you a personal VLOG about SPAZBOT STUDIO that let’s you know what came out this week and what is coming up! He will also discuss some off topic stuff as well as let you see what is going on in and around his home base! The Video above is a little TEST PILOT we did just to get the kinks work out

We believe Strongly that YouTube is an incredible place to create and explore, and a weekly VLOG is something we have had in the works for SPAZBOT STUDIOS for Months! Now we are so glad to get it out and make it a reality! If you have not had at chance to FOLLOW and SUBSCRIBE to your YouTube Channel, please, take the time do that now, so you will always have us in your Queue when a New Vlog hits the Channel!

Stormcast officially announced that the Regular Hosting Team has expanded! Willie “Dills” Gregory joins the Stormcast Team as a Full Time Co-Host! The announcement came during the live record for episode 59 of Stormcast!

“This is a really exciting time for the Spazbot Studios and for Stormcast,” says Mick Montgomery, Founder of Spazbot Studios. “I have had the pleasure to interview Dills on a number of occassions for both Stormcast and The Starting Zone, and he is just great to work with. So, when the idea came up about him doing Stormcast, we instantly felt it was a good move for the show.”

Willie “Dills” Gregory is of course all too familar with Blizzard Properties and Heroes of the Storm. He is currently the co-host on the most popular World of Warcraft Podcast “The Instance” as well as the most popular Hearthstone Podcast “The Angry Chicken”. He also spent some time hosting “Into the Nexus” a Heroes of the Storm Podcast. He brings a wealth of knowledge about gaming in general, and has become quite the popular streamer on Twitch.TV!

This is yet another big victory for Stormcast in an already impressive 2015. The show is now over a year old having recently passed it’s 50th episode Mile Stone, as well as launching its Patreon Account! Notch and Mick were both invited by Blizzard to both the Heroes of the Dorm Finals and the Launch Event for Heroes of the Storm in Los Angeles. “The Growth of the show since Notch joined the team has just been amazing,” said Mick Montgomery, “Last year at this time, the show was struggling to find an identity and community, and to be honest, I was debating just shutting it down. Once Notch joined the show, he injected this amazing passion for the game. As a producer his energy helped me center in on the show’s over-all approach. Since then we have just continued to work hard to put out good content, and it shows as the listener base has grown of 1000% since the beginning of the year.”

Stormcast hosts Mick Montgomery and Notch head to Las Vegas this weekend to cover the America’s Championshiop for Heroes of the Storm the final step for North American, South American, Australian, and South East Asian teams before the Final at Blizzcon. The entire team will then head to Blizzcon in November where they will appear together on-stage at World of Podcasts part of the Con Before the Storm!

If you are interested in checking out the show make sure you head to Stormcastshow.com and follow our Twitch Channel, so you can check us out when we record the show Live!

The time has arrived to debut a BRAND NEW Podcast from Spazbot Studios! SUPER HEROIC, a podcast about Comic Books that Turn into Movies and TV Shows, is ready for its grand reveal. After a TON OF WORK behind the scenes, interviews with guest co-hosts, meetings with composers, and late night calls with graphic designers the TIME has arrived to debut SUPER HEROIC!

Officially SUPER HEROICwill Debut July 29th, 2015! However, rumor has it an episode ZERO will debut a bit earlier than that! Mick Montgomery, Founder of Spazbot Studios, had this to say about the Project and its debut.

“We are very excited to finally bring SUPER HEROIC to Light. This is a labor of love project no doubt about it, and in many ways its the show I most wanted to do under the Spazbot Studios Banner. I think this is an awesome time to be a fan of comic books and a lover of great television and feature films. We want to do a show that talks about this incredible time. SUPER HEROIC is that show.”

SUPER HEROICwill have an innovative format. Each episode should be 10 – 20 minutes long and each week listeners can expect 3 – 4 episodes. Yes, you read that correctly, 3 – 4 episodes a week. And that is not even counting the potential bonus content in the works.

Super Heroic will be available on iTunes and Stitcher as well as where all other awesome podcasts are downloaded and consume. If you want the latest information on the show feel free to visit the website or follow the show on TWITTER!

Do you enjoy a good comic book? Do you enjoy it when that Comic Book is adapted into a Television Show or Feature Film? Are you partial to conversations in which all of those things are discussed? Do you possess what others would refer to as ‘an entertaining personality’? Then maybe you should consider becoming a Host for Super Heroic, a brand new Podcast/Video Show in development at Spazbot Studios!

Super Heroic is a different kind of ‘comic book’ show. The primary focus of the show is to cover Television Programs and Feature films adapted from Comic Books! We would tell you more in this post, but that would ruin the surprise for the audience! If you are interested in being considered for a host, please, send an email to mick@spazbotstudios.com! Include answers to the following questions! If we think you are the right fit we will contact you!

What is your favorite Comic Book and why?

How long have you been reading Comic Books?

What is your favorite Television Show adapted from a Comic Book and why?

What is your favorite Feature Film adapted from a Comic Book and why?

Who would you cast to play The Punisher in Netflix’s new series?

Please, have fun and be honest about your answers. Also, we’re not necessarily JUST seekig walking/talking Wikipedia’s on comic book lore. Comic Book knowledge is great, and will be a factor, but more so your passion, energy and personality are the most important thing. We are looking for both Men and Women to be hosts on the show because we appreciate different points of view. Also, we are examining permanent co-host positions as well as regular guest host positions. Good Luck, and we look forward to hearing from you!